At the beginning of the twentieth century, France's population was
low compared to its neighbours, and due to its past history.
However, the country's population sharply increased with the
baby boom following
World War II. During the Trente Glorieuses (1945-1974), the
country's reconstruction and steady economic growth led to the
labor-immigration of the 1960s, when many employers found manpower
in villages located in Southern
Europe and in the Maghreb (or North Africa). French law facilitated the immigration of
thousands of colons, ethnic or national French from former
colonies of North and West Africa,
India and Indochina, to mainland
France.1.6 million European pieds noirs migrated from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. In
the 1970s, over 30,000 French colons left Cambodia during
the Khmer Rouge regime as the Pol Pot government confiscated their farms and land
properties. However, after the 1973
energy crisis, laws limiting immigration were passed. In
addition, the country's birth rate dropped significantly during
this time.

Since the 1980s, France has ceased being a country of mass
immigration. Meanwhile, the national birth rate, after continuing
to drop for a time, began to rebound in the 1990s and currently the
country's fertility rate is close to the replacement level. In recent
years, immigrants have accounted for one quarter of the population
growth - a lower proportion than in most other European countries.
According to an INSEE 2006 study, "The natural
increase is close to 300,000 persons, a level that has not been
reached in more than thirty years. Net migration is estimated at
93,600 persons, slightly more than in 2005." [10492]

to make comparisons easier, figures provided below are
for the territory of metropolitan France within the borders of
2004.This was the real territory of France from
1860 to 1871, and again since 1919.Figures before
1860 have been adjusted to include Savoie and Nice, which only
became part of France in 1860.Figures
between 1795 and 1815 do not include the French
départements in modern day Belgium, Germany, the
Netherlands, and Italy, although they were an integral part of
France during that period.Figures between 1871 and 1919 have
been adjusted to include Alsace and part of
Lorraine, which both were at the
time part of the German Empire.

figures before 1801 are modern estimates; figures from
1801 (included) onwards are based on the official French
censuses.

Historical overview

1800 to 20th century

Starting around 1800, the historical evolution of the population in
France has been extremely atypical in the Western World. Unlike the rest of Europe, France did not experience a strong population
growth in the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. The
birth rate in France diminished much
earlier than in the rest of Europe. Consequently, population growth was quite
slow in the 19th century, and the nadir was reached in the first
half of the 20th century when France, surrounded by the rapidly
growing populations of Germany and the
United
Kingdom, experienced virtually zero growth. This,
and the bloody losses in France's population due to the First World War, may explain the sudden collapse
of France in 1940 during the Second World
War. France was often perceived as a country facing
irrecoverable decline. At the time, racist
theories were quite popular, and the dramatic demographic decline
of France was often attributed (particularly in Nazi Germany, and also in some conservative circles
in England and elsewhere) to the genetic characteristics of the
"French race", a race destined to fail in the face of the Germanic
and Anglo-Saxon "races". In addition,
the slow growth of France's population in the 19th century was
reflected in the country's very low emigration rate. While millions of people from
all other parts of Europe moved to the Americas, few French did so.
Most
people in the United
States of French extraction are descended from immigrants
from French Canada, whose population was rapidly growing at this
time.

To better understand the demographic decline of France, it should
be noted that France was historically the largest nation of Europe.
During the 17th century one fifth of Europe’s population was French
(and more than one quarter during the Middle Ages). Between 1815 and
2000, if the population of France had grown at the same rate as the
population of Germany during the same time period, France's population
would be 110 million today -- and this does not take into account
the fact that a large chunk of Germany's population growth was
siphoned off by emigration to the Americas.If France's
population had grown at the same rate as England and Wales (whose rate
was also siphoned off by emigration to the Americas, Australia and
New Zealand), France's population could be anywhere up to 150
million today.And if we start the comparison at the time
of King Louis XIV (the Sun
King), then France would in fact have the same population as the
United
States. While France had been very powerful in
Europe at the time of Louis XIV
or Napoleon, the demographic decline the
country experienced after 1800 helped it to lose this
advantage.

After World War II

After 1947 however, France suddenly underwent a demographic
recovery that no one could have foreseen. In the 1930s the French
government, alarmed by the decline of France's population, had
passed laws to boost the birth rate, giving state benefits to
families with children. Nonetheless, no one can quite
satisfactorily explain this sudden and unexpected recovery in the
demography of France, which was often portrayed as a "miracle"
inside France. This demographic recovery was again atypical
in the Western World, in the sense
that although the rest of the Western World experienced a baby boom immediately after the
war, the baby boom in France was much stronger, and above all it
lasted longer than in most other countries of the Western World
(the United
States being one of the few exceptions). In the
1950s and 1960s France enjoyed a population growth of 1% a year,
which is the highest growth in the history of France, not even
matched in the best periods of the 18th or 19th centuries.

Since 1975, France's population growth rate has significantly
diminished, but it still remains slightly faster than that of the
rest of Europe, and much faster than it was at the end of the 19th
century and during the first half of the 20th century. In the first decade
of the third millennium, population growth in France is the fastest
of Europe, matched only by Ireland and the Netherlands.However, it is significantly slower than
that of the United
States, whose population trends have diverged from those
of Europe since the 1970s.

The ranking below will help understand the past, present, and
future weight of France's population in Europe and in the
world:(historical populations are counted in the 2004
borders)

until
1795 metropolitan France was the most populous country of Europe,
above even Russia, and the
third most populous country in the world, behind only China and India

between 1795 and 1866, metropolitan France
was the second most populous country of Europe, behind Russia, and the
fourth most populous country in the world, behind China, India, and
Russia

between 1866 and 1911, metropolitan France
was the third most populous country of Europe, behind Russia and Germany

between 1911 and 1931, metropolitan France
was the fourth most populous country of Europe, behind Russia, Germany, and the United Kingdom

between 1991 and 2000, metropolitan France
recovered its rank as the fourth most populous country of Europe,
behind Russia, Germany, and the United Kingdom

since
2000, metropolitan France has recovered its rank as the third most
populous country of Europe, behind Russia and Germany. Worldwide, France's ranking has fallen to
twentieth most populous country.

if
current demographic trends continue (i.e. declining population in
Germany, and slightly rising population in France), around 2050
metropolitan France could become again the second most populous
country of Europe behind Russia.

Note that
in above data, Turkey is not
regarded as a European country.

Immigration

Before World War II

In the twentieth century, France experienced a high rate of
immigration from other countries. The
immigration rate was particularly high during the 1920s and 1930s.
France was the European country which suffered the most from
World War I, with respect to the size of
its population, losing 1.4 million young men out of a total
population of 40 million. France was also at the time the European
country with the lowest fertility
rate, which meant that the country had a very hard time
recovering from the heavy losses of the war. France had to open its
doors to immigration, which was the only way to prevent population
decline between the two world wars.

At the time France was the only European country to permit mass
immigration. The other major European powers, such as the UK or
Germany, still had high fertility rates, so immigration was seen as
unnecessary while it was also undesirable to the vast majority of
their populations. Armenians
immigrated to France after the Armenian Genocide of 1915. The majority of
immigrants in the 1920s and 1930s came from southern Europe: Greeks, Italians, Yugoslavs,
Portuguese and Spaniards, but also Eastern Europeans: Poles, Russians,
Hungarians and Czechoslovaks; and Belgians (nationality, but
composed of both French and Fleming-Dutch
elements) and the first wave of colonial French subjects from
Africa and Asia. By the
end of the Spanish Civil War, some
half-million Spanish Republican refugees had
crossedthe border into France. At
this time, Judaism was the second most
populous religion in France, as it had been for centuries. However,
this would soon change .

Local populations often opposed immigrant manpower, leading to
occasional outbursts of violence. The most violent of these was a pogrom against Italian workers who worked in the
salt evaporation ponds of
Peccais erupted in Aigues-Mortes in 1893, killing nine and injuring hundreds on the
Italian side.

After World War II

After World War II, the French
fertility rate rebounded considerably, as noted above, but economic
growth in France was so high that new immigrants had nonetheless to
be brought into the country. This time the majority of immigrants
were Portuguese as well as
Arabs and Berbers from
North Africa. The first wave arrived in
the 1950s, but the major arrivals happened in the 1960s and 1970s.
More than
one million people from the Maghreb immigrated in the 1960s and
early 1970s from North Africa, especially Algeria (following
the end of French rule there)
. One million European pieds
noirs also migrated from Algeria in 1962 and the following
years, due to the chaotic independence of Algeria. This is a focal
point of the current turbulent relationship of France and over
three million French of Algerian descent, a small percentage of
whom are third-or fourth-generation French.

In the late 1970s, due to the end of high economic growth in
France, immigration policies were considerably tightened, starting
with the Pasqua laws passed in the
late 1980s. New immigrants were allowed only through the family
reunion schemes (wives and children moving to France to live with
their husband or father already living in France), or as political
asylum seekers. Illegal
immigration thus developed. Nonetheless, immigration rates in
the 1980s and 1990s were much lower than in the 1960s and 1970s,
especially compared to other European countries. The regions of
emigrations also widened, with new immigrants now coming from
sub-saharan Africa and Asia. And in the 1970s, a small but well
publicized wave of Chilean and Argentine political refugees (see Chilean coup of 1973) found asylum in
France.

Ethnic Vietnamese started to
become a visible segment of society after the massive influx of
refugees after the end of the Vietnam
War in 1975. The expulsions of ethnic Chinese from Vietnam in the 1970s led to a wave of
immigration and the settlement of the high-rise neighbourhood near
the Porte d'Italie, where the Chinatown of Paris is located.
Located
in the 13th arrondissement, the area contains many ethnic Chinese
inhabitants.

The large-scale immigration from Islamic
countries sparked controversy in France. Nevertherless,
according to Justin Vaïsse, professor at Sciences Po
Paris, in spite of obstacles and spectacular failures
like the riots in November
2005, the integration of Muslim immigrants is happening as part
of a background evolution and recent studies confirmed the results
of their assimilation, showing that "North Africans seem to be
characterized by a high degree of cultural integration reflected in
a relatively high propensity to exogamy"
with rates ranging from 20% to 50%. According to Emmanuel Todd the relatively high exogamy
among French Algerians can be explained by the colonial link
between France and Algeria.

Today

Immigrants

As of 2006, the French national institute of statistics INSEE estimated that 4.9 million foreign-born
immigrants live in France (8% of the country's population) [10493]:The number of French citizens with
foreign origins is generally thought to be around 6.7 million
[10494] according to the 1999 Census conducted
by INSEE, which ultimately represents one tenth of the country's
population. (Ranked by the largest national groups, above 60,000
persons).

Most of the population from immigrant stock is of European descent (mainly from Italy,
Spain, and Portugal as well as Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine,
and the former Yugoslavia) although France has a sizeable
population of Arabs and Africans from its former colonies, the
proportion of immigrants in France is on par with other European
nations such as the United Kingdom (8%) [10495], Germany (9%) [10496], the Netherlands (18%) [10497], Sweden (13%) [10498] and Switzerland (19%) [10499]. Outside of Europe and North Africa, the
highest rate of immigration is from Vietnam, Cambodia and Senegal.

According to Michèle Tribalat, researcher at INED, it is very difficult to estimate the number of
French immigrants or born to immigrants, because of the absence of
official statistics. Only three surveys have been conducted: in
1927, 1942, and 1986 respectively. According to a 2004 study, there
were approximately 14 million persons of foreign ancestry, defined
as either immigrants or people with at least one parent,
grandparent, or great-grandparent emigreé. 5.2 million of these
people were from South-Europe
ascendency (Italy, Spain, Portugal and former Yugoslavia); and 3
million come from the Maghreb (North
Africa). Immigrants from the Maghreb are commonly referred to as
beur, a verlan
slang term derived from the word arabe (French for
Arab).

In 2004, a total of 140,033 people immigrated to France. Of them,
90,250 were from Africa and 13,710 from
Europe. In 2005, immigration level fell
slightly to 135,890. The European
Union allows free movement between the member states.
While the
UK (along with Ireland and Sweden ) did not
impose restrictions, France put in place controls to curb Eastern European migration.

In the 2000s, the net migration rate was estimated to be 0.66
migrants per 1,000 population a year [10500]. This is a very low rate of immigration compared to other European
countries, the USA or Canada. Since the beginning of the 1990s,
France has been attempting to curb immigration, first with the
Pasqua laws, followed by both
right-wing and socialist-issued laws. The immigration rate
is currently lower than in other European countries such as
United
Kingdom and Spain; however,
some say it is doubtful that the policies in themselves account for
such a change. Again, as in the 1920s and 1930s, France
stands in contrast with the rest of Europe. Back in the 1920s and
1930s, when European countries had a high fertility rate, France
had a low fertility rate and had to open its doors to immigration
to avoid population decline. Today, it is the rest of Europe that
has very low fertility rates, and countries like Germany or Spain
avoid population decline only through immigration. In France, however,
fertility rate is still fairly high for European standards, in fact
the highest in Europe after Ireland (the E.U.) and Albania (perhaps higher than Ireland's), and so most
population growth is due to natural increase, unlike in the other
European countries.

This difference in immigration trends is also because the labor
market in France is currently less dynamic than in other countries
such as the UK, Ireland or Spain, this may even be a more relevant
factor than low birth rates (because Ireland has both the highest
fertility and the highest net immigration rate in Europe, whereas
Eastern European countries such as Russia, Poland, Hungary and the
Ukraine have both a low fertility and a high net emigration rate,
as well as a high unemployment rate).

For example, according to the UK Office for National
Statistics, in the three years between July 2001 and July 2004
the population of the UK increased by 721,500 inhabitants, of which
242,800 (34%) was due to natural increase, and 478,500 (66%) to
immigration. According to the INSEE, in the
three years between January 2001 and January 2004 the population of
Metropolitan France increased by
1,057,000 inhabitants, of which 678,000 (64%) was due to natural
increase, and 379,500 (36%) to immigration.

The latest 2008 demographic statistics have been released, and
France's birth and fertility rates have continued to rise. The
fertility rate increased to 2.02 in 2008 and for the first time
approaches the fertility rate of the United States.

Religion

France has not collected religious or ethnic data in its censuses
since the beginning of the Third
Republic, but the country's predominant faith has been Roman Catholicism since the early Middle
Ages. Church attendance is fairly low, however, and the proportion
of the population that is not religious has grown over the past
century. A 2004 IFOP survey tallied that 44% of
the French people do not believe in God; contrast with 20% in 1947
[10501]. A study by the CSA Institute conducted in 2003 with a sample
of 18,000 people found that 27% consider themselves atheists, and
65.3% Roman Catholic compared to 67% in 2001 . Furthermore 12.7%
(8,065,000 people) belonged to some other religion.

There are an estimated 5 million Muslims, 1 million Protestants,
500-600,000 Jews, 600,000 Buddhists, and 150,000 Orthodox
Christians as of 2000 figures . The last figure does not appear to
include high numbers of Apostolic Armenians present in the
country's two main conurbations. The US State Department's
International Religious Freedom Report 2004 .[10502]
estimated the French Hindu population at 181,312.

These studies did not ask the respondants if they were practicing
or how often they did practice if they were active in the
laity.

Fertility

France is said to be experiencing a new baby boom due to the rise
in fertility rate and in births.

The table below gives the average number of children according to
the place of birth of women. An immigrant woman is a woman who was
born outside of France and who did not have French citizenship at
birth. Source - French-Wikipedia

It is illegal for the French state to collect data on ethnicity and
race, a law with its origins in the 1789 revolution and reaffirmed in the
constitution of 1958. Some
organisations, such as the Representative Council of Black
Associations ( , CRAN), have argued in favour of the introduction
of data collection on minority groups but this has been resisted by
other organisations and ruling politicians, often on the grounds
that collecting such statistics goes against France's secular
principles and harks back to Vichy-era
identity documents. During the
2007 presidential
election, however, Nicolas
Sarkozy was polled on the issue and stated that he favoured the
collection of data on ethnicity. Part of a parliamentary bill which
would have permitted the collection of data for the purpose of
measuring discrimination was rejected by the Conseil Constitutionnel in November
2007.

An estimated thirteen million French citizens, or about one-fifth
of the population, are of ethnic or national non-French origins. Of
European ethnic groups, the
most numerous are people of Italian
family origin and it is estimated that about 5 million French
Nationals (8% of the population in France) are of Italian origine
if their parentage is retraced over three generations. [10506] This is due to waves of Italian
immigration, notably during the late 19th and early 20th century.
Other large European groups of non-native origin are Spaniards, Portuguese, Polish, and Greek.
Also, due to more recent immigration, a total of five million
Arab-Berber people
and approximately 500,000 Turks
inhabit France. An influx of North African Jews immigrated to
France in the 1950's and after the Algerian War due to the decline
of the French empire. Subsequent waves of immigration followed the
Six-Day War, when some Moroccan and Tunisian Jews settled in
France. Hence, by 1968, North African Jews were about 500.000 and
the majority in France. As these new immigrants were already
culturally French they needed little time to adjust to French
society. Black people (3% of the
population) come from both the French overseas territories and
Sub-Saharan Africa.

Although it is illegal in France for a census to be taken on race
or religion, Solis, a marketing company, estimated recently the
numbers for Ethnic minorities in France as follows :

3.264M North African (5.23%)

1.080M Sub-Saharan African (1.73%)

600,000 Jews (1%, mostly of North African origin)

441,000 Turkish (0.71%)

757,000 French overseas departéments and territories
(1.21%)

Religions

Note they are estimates in the 2001 French Census, since the French
government forbids collective data of individuals' religious
faith.

"Compared with the Europeans, the Tunisians belong to a much
more recent wave of migration and occupy a much less favourable
socioeconomic position, yet their pattern of marriage behaviour is
nonetheless similar (...). Algerian and Moroccan immigrants have a
higher propensity to exogamy than Asians or Portuguese but a much
weaker labour market position. (...) Confirming the results from
other analyses of immigrant assimilation in France, this study
shows that North Africans seem to be characterized by a high degree
of cultural integration (reflected in a relatively high propensity
to exogamy, notably for Tunisians) that contrasts with a persistent
disadvantage in the labour market.", Intermarriage and assimilation: disparities in levels of
exogamy among immigrants in France, Mirna Safi, Volume 63
2008/2

In 2003, the French Ministry of the Interior estimated the
total number of Muslims as 5-6 million whereas the "Front National"
spoke about 8 million, in Jonathan Laurence and Justin
Vaïsse,Intégrer l'Islam, Odile Jacob, 2007